Five Items Of Note

A list of things for discussion this June. Hot Divorcee Summer, 80's fashion, keeping your phone close, a plethora of HDS suitable dresses and why I won't be asking Steven Bartlett out for a drink.

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Good morning and as I type this, Graham the handyman has just visited with his drill to hang some heavy pictures up the stairs. Ah, it’s been a while since they’ve seen the light of day and the thick layer of building dust covering them proves it, but it’s very nice to start sticking stuff on the walls again. The rest of the multitude that I own I can hang with Command Strips which I LOVE. Basically, anything that doesn’t have glass in it, I whack them on the back and they have never failed me. Except for the time that I put them on plates that didn’t have a flat back and hoped for the best and they all fell off. But apart from that, I would swear by them. Ha.

My daughter Ella is in Greece on holiday with her boyfriend Lucas at the moment and has just messaged me to say she passed her degree. She’s been studying for five years (she’s trained to be a Physicians Associate) and took her final exam the day that I went on the train with my friends to Northumberland a few weeks ago. After a lovely joyous Cross Country ride with chat, crisps and a small can of spicy marg, my phone rang as we arrived at Alnmouth platform with a hysterical child on the end of the phone crying that she’d ‘ruined five years of her life’ and had ‘got all the answers wrong’ and that basically, she’d be living the next 60 years with a million pounds student debt and no job. Suffice to say that her results proved otherwise and that the entire ruination of my arrival on my mini break had all been for nothing, in fact she had MORE than passed the exam and had done really well. FFS. I don’t know WHERE she gets all this drama from, quite frankly.

In contrast, Leo had his theory test yesterday and failed by eight points. Both of my other kids passed first time but in fairness to Leo, that was around the lock down period and their exams had been cancelled so they didn’t have much to do aside from cram revise speed limits. I praise be that I predate the introduction of theory tests. It took me three times to pass my driving test - the first time I failed for being unable to reverse around a corner (a manoeuvre that has never once been done again in the 32 years since I passed) and the second time for overtaking a street cleaning machine on a speed bump. My driving instructor was a permanently red faced, portly man who would make me stop mid lesson outside Lowlands Tennis Club in Eastcote so that he could ‘pop to the toilet’ before returning ten minutes later reeking of whiskey. Every single lesson, I tell you. It’s no wonder that it took me years to pass.

But back to the point and so far this month, my heating has automatically come on every morning for the last week so the weather here in York had better get its act in gear soon or I may be forced to emigrate. Whilst we wait for the sun to start shining, here are five items of note that I have been contemplating this June that I think you need to know about.

1. Is it a Hot Divorcee Summer? Yes. Yes it is.

Last month, comedian Tatty Macleod announced that the trend this year was full on, Hot Divorcee Summer. No one is interested in a Brat Girl Summer now it’s 2026 (so last year, darling); the aura you’re looking for is married for 20 years, husband leaves, kids at University, lots of time to yourself, living your best life. Tatty’s post was picked up by The Guardian and Metro, with journalists writing about how, in fact, this is reality for many and actually, we are a vibe. FACT. Yes, I knew this anyway but it’s nice to have it confirmed, ha. It’s absolutely NO surprise to me that this has struck a cord, albeit a comedic one, after I posted about my own marriage break up last year and a zillion women messaged me to say they were in the same situation but who were, quite frankly, living the life.

The responses that I received to my original post were extensive but also made it glaringly obvious that for some women, there was shame in the fact that their marriage had failed. I spoke to multiple women who had not even told their work colleagues or even friends what they were going through as they were too embarrassed. In response, I wrote a post that was republished by The Times last week about how much I am enjoying being single, mostly because I wanted to show solidarity to the almost 40% of women involved in divorces over 50. When I idly checked the comments section (generally wouldn’t recommend this, but you know, it’s interesting), any critique - and there was much of it - was entirely from men, some of whom commented on how many times I mentioned my own happiness within the piece as though that was shameful. Totally fascinating. Woman is left by man, woman realises how much she had done for husband and family over the years, celebrates that despite a painful break up, she can still be happy; in fact, maybe even happier.

How dare she? She should be there, picking up the pieces, supporting the home and family emotionally and conforming to patriarchal norms whilst the unhappy husband starts his new, carefree life. It must have been HER fault. She was probably hell to live with. But oh, wait. She’s been doing all of these tasks and more for YEARS whilst also, in many cases, struggling to work full time in a world where being a working women is significantly harder than being a working man. It’s no wonder that many women in my demographic struggle emotionally when this situation occurs. The battering down of women who decide that they won’t conform continues, which is absolute fucking insanity.

So, a Hot Divorcee Summer? Tatty recommends big hats, floaty dresses, yachts, champagne on tap and handing out your Hotel room number if you so feel like it. I’m heading to Greece and although I might not be doing the latter (although never say never, but I am with my kids, ha) and there won’t be any yachts involved, I will 100% be wafting around in light linen and have already bought a big hat from Zara. I’ll be reading books, sipping cold sparkling and spending as much time as I am able concentrating on ME. And you can bet your life I’ll be writing about how bloody great it was afterwards. Bring it on, baby.

2. What goes around comes around.

I was 18 in 1989 and it was a good time to be alive. The eighties get a lot of flack but woah, they were fun - there were no mobile phones, no social media and life was far less complicated. Fashion was King. Last week, I popped in to Zara with Ella and it was like stepping back into Regals in Uxbridge on a Friday night - they say that in fashion trends, what goes around comes around and this was entirely evident as I perused the rails. Florals, puff balls, rah rah skirts, pedal pushers. Okay, they have changed the names, admittedly, to suit today’s customer - puff ball is now classed as ‘balloon’, rah rah is now ‘ruffled skirt’, pedal pushers ‘capri’, but we KNOW. Zara knows a good thing when they see it. My favourite sweatshirt ever was a big, blowsy faded one, covered in roses and almost exactly the same as this pair of jeans below, currently on the racks.

Rose printed jeans with turn ups. OH YES. Zara.

Next stop, M&S where they had a full display of jelly bags. JELLY BAGS! In fairness, jelly shoes had already made a comeback but bags have taken a little longer to return to the shelves. I LOVED my jelly bags when I was a teen, although there is absolutely nothing practical about them whatsoever, unless you’re on the beach. M&S have called this a ‘jelly grab bag’ which makes it sound as though you’re about to rob a supermarket (obviously no good for this task since you can see straight through it) and now I’ve looked for them online, I’m fuming I didn’t get one instore as they’re all out of stock.

Also, peplums. I had the BEST peplum suit that I bought from Wallis when I was 18 and working in a London Hotel - navy blue pencil skirt, padded shoulders, flared from the waist. Wallis was my go to for work clothes, together with The Sock Shop at Green Park tube station where I’d constantly buy replacement stockings - STOCKINGS! Suspender belts! - as I laddered them daily and was forced to cover my legs as I worked in a Hotel environment and it’s the law, apparently. Or was anyway. Can you even buy suspender belts now (aside from in Ann Summers)? Standard work outfit circa 1989 involved pencil skirt, shirt with shoulder pads (Wallis was famous for these) and stiletto heels which I managed to walk half an hour to the tube in every day from home and then stood up on all day. WHO DOES THIS NOW? Crazy times, indeed. Kilt style long smart skirts were also a huge thing, with the slight downside that the moment you’d catch a gust of wind they’d fly open. My worst ever experience was walking from my office to the Hotel reception on a windy day and being wolf whistled by Jeremy Beadle who got a full on view of a Sock Shop suspender belt. God help me. And yoke skirts, where the top waist band is flat to the hips and then flares out. Shell jackets, frilled shirts, wide stripes, polka dots. This was OUR era and it’s all back with a vengeance.

It’s not Wallis, but it’s a peplum. H&M.

There’s a lot of love for the eighties right now, particularly since the new season of Rivals has hit Disney. I LOVED Jilly’s books. I read them all, repeatedly, every single one of them - so much joy and fun in her words, sadly often lacking in the world that we live in today. Anyway, am loving the resurgence and will be hitting M&S this weekend for my holiday jelly bag, although I might give the stilettos and kilts a miss, this time.

3. It’s okay to have fun, Steven.

This past week, my feed has been filled with the news that entrepreneur Steven Bartlett spoke on his podcast about how he had two glasses of wine and it basically took him three days to recover and ruined all his health app stats. There is something really bloody dismal about this, from multiple angles. I quote:

"I had a couple of glasses of wine, [and while] I didn’t get drunk, it ruined three days of my life because of the domino effect it caused," he says on his podcast. "I got worse sleep that night and ate more poorly the next day... because my dopamine system or cortisol system or whatever was all messed up. Then I podcasted worse, and I didn’t go to the gym the day after, and I could track all of this on my Whoop”.

I bet he’s fun at parties, hey? The media and endless social platforms picked this up (thus the bombardment on my Instagram), including the fact that this was a front forward indirect promotion for the health watch brand that he invests in (insert raised eyes emoji). And there’s been hundreds of articles post this statement debating the fact that the current obsession with wellness, fitness, all the stuff is creating a society where health optimisation is promoted as the key to happiness, putting pressure on people who are not so health conscious or health focused to get with the programme or lag behind.

Not one for a party invite. Photo credit: Getty Images.

I mean, there is no one who can say that drinking lots of alcohol is good for you. Or that eating loads of junk food is going to keep you healthy. Or that mainlining sugar and avoiding vegetables is not going to affect your weight. But does that mean we have to ditch it all completely in order to reach optimum living? Urgh. Everyone is at liberty to make their own health and lifestyle choices and I totally respect those choices, but is it right that we should then feel guilty for having a KitKat because it might give us a sugar high? (although personally I think that’s a really good reason to have a KitKat). Should we all be slaves to our health trackers? Admittedly, I do like to track my sleep, if only to see if I am snoring or not.

The comment about ‘eating poorly’ was also quite fascinating. Did he have a packet of Monster Munch? A Dairylea Dunker? A Charlie Bighams fish pie for one? I wonder often how we got to a stage where we are made to feel subconsciously guilty for having something to eat that doesn’t fall into the ‘health optimisation’ category. Surely scoffing a chocolate Hobnob will bring enough joy to negate the fact that your cortisol reading will go up momentarily. I don’t think that the rise in the use of GLP-1’s has helped this food shunning situation, either. My entire social platforms are full of ‘weight loss journeys’ and most of these ‘journeys’ involve whacking an injection in and, the majority of times, no longer getting the full joy out of food. Everyone seems to have forgotten that eating is not only for sustenance, but also for pleasure and I certainly don’t want my kids to feel guilty for eating Haribos. Side note: I am feeling quite jaded about posts regarding ‘weight loss journeys’ although I know they are useful for some. Honestly, I don’t care. I’m pleased for those who have reached their goals (and the health benefits surrounding significant weight loss are huge, as we know) but I would rather read an article about how to cook a great chicken dish or make a good hummus, tbh. Sorry for my grouchiness, but I am SO BORED of weight stuff. I did love this viral post from Ilona Maher, though. Live your life, people.

As an eighties child, I am pretty much programmed for excess although generally, I live a fairly balanced, healthy lifestyle - my BMI is normal, I like a glass of wine (or three) and I am passionate about Walkers Chicken Sensations. But if no one had ANY vices, how boring would life be? The Greeks said ‘moderation in all things’, arguing that extremes rarely lead to a sustainable lifestyle. And I’d rather have two glasses of wine in the company of good friends with real, proper, social chat and belly laughs than a life where my closest relationship is with my Whoop watch and phone.

4. Keeping your phone close.

I have always been a nightmare for mislaying my phone, although not as bad as my sister who has always been the best at losing things. Even when she hasn’t lost it she’s the worst at answering it, often because it is uncharged, but more than likely she’s talking and can’t hear it. But over a decade ago, I started working on social media and my phone became my actual work and therefore as precious to me as solid gold. Or my children. One or the other, anyway. A little known fact about social media ‘influencers’ is that they have nightmares about their phones disappearing (yes, this may seem a little trite in terms of world events) because if they DO, then it’s job done. As in, no phone - or worse, a HACKED phone, which, touch wood, has never happened to me but I live in absolute fear - and you’ve no longer got a job as your entire work life is on there. So keeping my phone up close and personal is an essential.

Phone straps are my absolute BFF’s and I’ve been using two BURGA ones this past month which I need to tell you about. The first is a Mini Strap which is wrist length; the second is a Maxi Strap, long enough to go across body which is a huge bonus when most of the time we don’t need to leave the house with anything aside from our phones. Using the strap enables me to keep track of where it is but most importantly, I don’t worry about dropping it which is always a possibility when I’m running around doing stuff. You attach to your phone case using a clip card so that you can swap between straps when you like, plus they come in seven different colours with thick alloy hardware that clips to the card. It’s been a game changer when it comes to leaving the house and knowing that I’m keeping my phone as safe as I can.

BURGA was launched in 2015 by two best Lithuanian friends who decided that phone attire should be as fashion forward as what you wear yourself so set to work on creating a collection that was as stylish as the owner. Their products quickly became super popular worldwide, not just for their designs but also because they were hardwearing and protective of your phone. BURGA have also brought out a new range of cases called Mesimeri, inspired by my favourite place in the world, Greece. Plus they have a current deal where you buy two cases and you will get another two cases free of charge. You can also get matching accessories including a battery pack and laptop case amongst other items, proving that your tech stuff can be JUST as chic as you. You can use LISADAX15 to get 15% off the entire site.

5. Hot Divorcee Summer dresses.

Okay, so whilst we are on the subject of Hot Divorcee Summer, I covered the obligatory sun hats last month so this month, let’s take a look at floaty summer dresses suitable for your summer holiday. Before you start to panic, I am not here for the bodycon, the excessively revealing, nor the tight on the stomach sort of dress. Nobody needs that when you’re on holiday and want to make the most of the buffet. So I’ve scoured the web and found a selection that are appropriately Hot Divorcee Summer without giving too much away, all of which are suitable for floating around in, drinking champagne, wearing a hat and boarding a yacht.

Suffice to say that I’ve already bought three of these beauties (namely 6, 8 and 12). I am useless in the face of my own influencing, ffs. Happy holidays.

1.Zara, £49.99; 2. Cos, £85, 3. Mango, £69.99; 4. Sansom Reed, £340; 5. Free People, £158; 6. La Redoute, £35.99; 7. H&M, £29.99; 8. Rixo, £185; 9. John Lewis, £27; 10. Faune, £220; 11. Farm Rio, £320; 12. River Island, £36.

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